SURREY’S quest for a hat-trick of Vitality County Championship titles gained further momentum with a 281-run demolition of Worcestershire inside three days at the Kia Oval.
Dan Worrall added four for 35 to his first innings’ six for 22 and late hitting from Ben Gibbon and Nathan Smith merely delayed the inevitable as Worcestershire, set a nominal 513 to win, were bowled out for 231 in their second innings on Sunday.
Worcestershire, a sickly 102 for eight at one stage, were boosted by Gibbon’s spirited 63-ball 75, his career-best, and Smith’s 60, while Kemar Roach picked up two for 29 and Dan Lawrence two for 53. Sean Abbott and Gus Atkinson took a wicket apiece, leaving only Jordan Clark wicketless.
It is Surrey’s fourth successive victory and, having begun the game already 21 points clear of their nearest rivals, their 19-point haul could stretch their lead at the top of Division One table.
Surrey’s second innings 427 left Worcestershire, 85 runs in arrears on first innings, with not just a mountain to climb but an impossible task even to save the game against the 2023 and 2022 champions’ formidable five-pronged pace attack.
And, despite a well-grassed surface playing far easier than when Surrey – put in – had slipped initially to 15 for four at the start of the match, Worcestershire’s top order were still no match for Worrall and company.
Gareth Roderick (1) was the first to go, before lunch, nibbling a legside catch to keeper Ben Foakes off Worrall, and in the fifth over after the interval Kashif Ali (12) glanced Roach to leg slip, where Lawrence took a smart low catch.
Soon Worcestershire were an ugly 34 for four, with Worrall producing classic outswingers to have both Jake Libby (13) and Adam Hose (1) caught at the wicket.
Atkinson’s introduction, for the 20th over, brought an almost immediate reward as the centrally-contracted England fast bowler bowled Brett D’Oliveira with his sixth ball for 13.
Matthew Waite was the next to depart, at 69 for six, when he swished at Abbott’s fast-medium and edged through for Foakes to claim the fourth of his five catches in the innings.
Worrall, recalled for a second spell at the Vauxhall End after Atkinson’s initial 6-1-14-1, struck with his eighth ball back to have Rob Jones leg-before for 14 and Roach also returned to have Joe Leach caught behind for six.
But Smith, the New Zealand international, then offered defiance with some lovely strokes against the Surrey quicks, and in No 10 Gibbon he also found a willing partner in a ninth wicket stand of 71 that took the game beyond tea.
But after he reached 60, with two sixes in the first over following the interval from Lawrence which cost 18, Smith hit the off spinner high to long on where Roach took a comfortable catch.
Gibbon continued to attack, taking three sixes from Lawrence’s third over, that cost 25, and in the process completing his maiden first-class fifty before also hooking Abbott over the deep mid wicket ropes for another maximum.
Last man Yadvinder Singh joined in the fun, as Lawrence was replaced nursing the extraordinary figures of 3-0-49-1. Singh’s unbeaten 14 helped Gibbon to post another 58 for the tenth wicket, a Worcestershire record against Surrey, before Gibbon greeted Lawrence’s return to the attack by mis-hitting a reverse-swipe to deep mid-wicket. Gibbon’s 75 had included four sixes and seven fours.
Surrey had earlier spent 75 minutes adding 85 more runs to their overnight 342 for five, with both Lawrence and Clark – resuming on 86 and 69 respectively – failing to complete their hundreds after adding 117 together in 22 overs for the sixth wicket.
Clark got closest, agonisingly falling for 98 from 116 balls when one from Waite kept a little low and pinned him in front. Lawrence went in the morning’s second over, having added just a single to reach 87 before swivel-pulling Gibbon straight to deep square leg, but Abbott helped Clark to add a quickfire 42, pummeling two legside sixes in the process.
Bustling medium-pacer Waite then produced a fine ball to send back Atkinson for four, leg-before in front of his stumps, and Abbott’s merry 31-ball 38 was ended when he swung once too often at Singh and was bowled.
Paceman Singh ended up with four for 103, on his first-class debut, when he also bowled Worrall for two, while Waite and the left-arm Gibbon – who toiled through 27 overs – both deserved their own figures of three for 69 and three for 102, respectively.
Surrey’s Clark said: “I wasn’t too disappointed to get out on 98, to be honest. It was a good ball, that also kept a little bit low, and I think it would have got me 90 times out of 100.
“Most importantly, we have got another win under our belts and an extra day off ahead of what is a very big game away at Hampshire at the end of this coming week.”
On Dan Worrall, whose outstanding match figures of 10 for 57 gives him 26 wickets at just 13.57 runs apiece from the four games he has so far played in the championship campaign, Clark added: “He has been absolutely fantastic for us again this season.
“His accuracy, his skill and his precision with the ball makes him a truly brilliant bowler to have in our team.”
Worcestershire head coach Alan Richardson said: “This was a very tough game for us against a very good side. We had a couple of windows of opportunity during the first day when we could have got ourselves in a position to get ahead in the game but we couldn’t quite take them.
“And then, on the second day, we dropped Dan Lawrence early in his innings and they went on to make it a very tough day in the field for us.
“The players are disappointed but they must not be disheartened and they have to learn from matches like this against teams as good as Surrey.
“At 15 for four on the first morning we had our first chance and then Lawrence and Pope played very well to put on 148.
“But we fought back to bowl them out for 213 and if we had not lost two late wickets on the first evening and got to stumps five down instead of seven down we could have got at least to parity on first innings and it might have been a different game from there.”
